Pittsburgh real estate news
Read the latest real estate news and how it may effect the Pittsburgh real estate market for buyers and sellers.
Renovation Inspiration Contest finalists named
Finalists have been chosen for the 2011-12 Renovation Inspiration Contest. Judges from the Post-Gazette and Community Design Center of Pittsburgh chose 11 projects and will begin site visits.
Buying Here: Downtown
How would you like to live in one of Downtown's most photographed buildings? The Bruno Building at 347 Liberty Ave., better known as the one with the big statues out front, has appeared in newspapers, magazines, ads and countless tourists' pictures.
Webinar to discuss Pennsylvania trees
A "webinar" to discuss community trees in Pennsylvania will be held from noon to 1 p.m. Tuesday at https://meeting.psu.edu/pacommunityforestry. Christine Ticehurst, TreeVitalize program administrator, will lead the discussion on increasing tree canopy cover in cities and communities. In recent years, studies have shown that built communities across Pennsylvania have lost tree canopy cover.
Christmas rose (Helleborus niger) puts on a show
It is hard to imagine flowers blooming outdoors in February, but the Christmas rose (Helleborus niger) delights gardeners with its charming pure white blooms that emerge from the plant even when frost and snow lie on the ground.
Phipps puts the vibrancy of the subcontinent on display in the Tropical Forest India exhibition
If you had to describe the new Tropical Forest India display at Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens in one word, it would be "colorful," says assistant curator of horticulture Ben Dunigan. In fact, during his visit to India to prepare the exhibit, Mr. Dunigan found most American gardens pretty pale in comparison.
'The Art of Seating' exhibit opens at Westmoreland Museum of American Art
Take a good look at the chairs in your house before you go to "The Art of Seating." You may see them in a whole new light afterward. The exhibition, which opens today at Westmoreland Museum of American Art, features 43 chairs from the Jacobsen American Chair Collection made between the beginning of the 19th century and 2010.
Building a Bed
Like many product designers, Judy White spent years creating collections that were ultimately sold under other people's names -- most notably, for Calvin Klein, where she designed and introduced the tabletop and giftware collections.
The Man Behind the Chair
Every piece the designer Joe Colombo created for the furniture manufacturer Kartell from 1964 to 1971, as well as sketches and photos from the Joe Colombo archive in Milan, is currently on display at R 20th Century. "He was one of the great geniuses of his time," said Zesty Meyers, an owner of the gallery. "And he's still relatively unknown."
Hands Up, House: I'm Packing a Cordless
THESE are words that no self-respecting husband likes to write: My wife sold me out to the Home Depot guy.
To Help Make Sure Your Home Is Healthy, an Ingredients List
Peter Syrett, an architect, and Chris Youssef, an interior designer, believe that building materials should be labeled, just like cereal boxes and soup cans, so consumers can avoid ingredients that might be harmful. With the backing of their employer, the global architecture firm Perkins + Will, they have created a database linking common forms of flooring, lumber, wiring, pipes and other construction materials to government warnings about the substances contained in them.
Wood to Go
Visitors to the NoLIta store Haus Interior may be surprised by what they find there over the next few weeks. Beginning Friday, the store's usual home accessories will be replaced by Wood Shop, a temporary concept store created by David Stark, who has developed pop-up shops for Target and West Elm. "The idea is that everything in the shop is either made of or inspired by the materials, tools and imagery of the iconic woodworker's atelier," Mr. Stark said.
Be It Ever So Humble, Really
The handmade house, doughty and particular, is being celebrated in three books, a publishing event that feels like an anodyne in these troubled housing times. "Handmade Houses: A Century of Earth Friendly Home Design" (Rizzoli; $45), by Richard Olsen, a former editor at Architectural Digest, is a breezy history of the genre, tracing its roots from Henry Thoreau to Carl Jung, and from Helen and Scott Nearing, whose subsistence-living experiment in Vermont in the mid-'50s prefigured the '70s-era back-to-the-l
